Sangh Parivar

Amritsar, July 3 (IANS) Member of Parliament Navjot
Singh Sidhu Thursday asked Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to seek
an apology from External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and initiate
breach of privilege proceedings against officials for ignoring him
during a function here last week.

In a letter to the Lok Sabha
speaker, Sidhu pointed out that the minister and the Ministry of
External Affairs (MEA) officials committed a blatant breach of protocol
by not allowing him to address the minister or even join the minister
and other dignitaries on the dais during the inauguration of a new
regional passport office here.

The passport office was inaugurated Saturday by Mukherjee in the presence of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.

While
Mukherjee, Badal and others sat on the dais, Sidhu was made to sit
among the audience. He is the sitting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
member of the Lok Sabha from Amritsar.

'The treatment meted out
to me as a public representative and collective voice of over 1.5
million people of Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency is outrageously
insulting and denigrating,' Sidhu said in his strongly worded complaint.

He
lodged a strong protest against the conduct of ministry officials who,
he claimed, lowered the stature of an MP by excluding him from
discharging his role.

Sidhu demanded breach of privilege proceedings against the MEA officials and an unconditional apology from the minister.

The former cricketer turned MP said he had worked hard to get the passport office sanctioned for Amritsar.

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